Whether delivered in traditional workshop style in a training room, or via video conference, it supports team members to become more curious about each other’s diverse skills, interests and values, and the changing context within the organisation.

They learn to engage in collaborative influence, developing their proficiency in all three of its stages: paying attention, guiding attention, and speaking up.

As a result, the following shifts typically occur:

Participants bond as a team, developing new ways to support each other to do their best work

They become more transparent with each other and more proficient at giving each other clear, actionable feedback to encourage preferred behaviours and discourage less-desirable ones

Fearfulness and game-playing are reduced, and tension/conflict becomes easier to handle

They become more skilful in both paying attention and directing attention. This enhances their ability to elicit high-value information in any conversation

They become more effective communicators across functional and other boundaries within the organisation.

Collaboration Dynamics may be used at any point in a team’s development, but is especially valuable at the ‘forming’ and ‘storming’ stages. It is not a conflict-resolution methodology, but is robust enough to handle high levels of disagreement within the team.

The Collaboration Dynamics process is based on Clean Language – a precision inquiry framework that improves communication between diverse individuals, even when exploring unknown unknowns in complex contexts. Specifically, the process draws on adaptations of Clean Language for use with teams by Caitlin Walker, documented in her 2014 book From Contempt To Curiosity.

Collaboration Dynamics also incorporates insights from a variety of academic sources around team development, communication and dialogue skills.

Format

Collaboration Dynamics workshops can be delivered a variety of formats – online and in-the-room – depending on the needs for your organisation. For more details please contact us.

How to disagree with your colleagues in a process of creative abrasion

A method for giving high-quality feedback which can improve both your shared work, and your working relationships.

You’ll benefit from research into some of the world’s most innovative organisations, and discover the often-missed practices that drive collaborative influence.

The session will be highly interactive, with lots of activities and minimal chalk-and-talk.

Both in the workshop and beyond, our intention is that:

all participants feel respected and psychologically safe,

talkative people are willing to listen

reserved people are willing to speak

the group practices having rich, collaborative conversations that draw out the best from everyone.

Format

Originally designed as a full-day in-person workshop for a group of up to 15 people, this can be adapted for live online delivery over video conference or reduced to a half day.

To discuss how it might benefit your team or team-of-teams, please contact us.

]]>Remote Training / Facilitator Skillshttps://reesmccann.com/2019/05/24/remote-training-facilitator-skills/
Fri, 24 May 2019 14:34:44 +0000https://reesmccann.com/?p=1588Read more]]>You’re an amazing trainer and facilitator when you’re in the same room as your group… but the voice in your head says “NO!” when you’re asked to deliver online.

When you think about working remotely, across continents, perhaps you fear that:

You’ll be trapped by the technology

You’ll be forced into the ever-deadly talking-over-slides format

Your lively small-group activities just won’t work

Interaction with participants will be limited

You won’t be able to read the group’s dynamics

Attendees will barely pretend to pay attention – and it will not be time well spent.

If you’ve been in the business for a while, you’ve probably had at least one awful experience… almost enough to put you off the whole idea.

What if it didn’t have to be like that?

What if your live online workshops and trainings could be just as fun and vibrant as they are when you’re a few feet away from your participants?

What if you could:

Get your participants moving, chatting and laughing together

Host high-quality group discussions

Feel confident everyone was “getting” the key content

… all without leaving the comfort of your own home or office?

This workshop will teach you how to make that happen by combining awareness of best-practice facilitation and training methods with the practicalities of modern online meeting technology.

The tech does still have limitations – we can’t actually stand shoulder-to-shoulder around a flip-chart (yet!). But we’ll expand your sense of what is currently possible, and demonstrate ways to overcome many of the limitations.

We’ll even show you how remote training and facilitation may be better than the in-the-room kind!

After taking this class, participants will be able to:

Design and lead engaging, participative live online workshops and training sessions

Make real, human connections with participants

Eradicate multitasking and distraction, making focus the default

Create a psychologically safe space, remotely

Discourage groupthink and amplify divergence in live online video discussions

Adapt your small-group exercises/activities, including those based on space and movement, for live online classes

Implement strategies to manage tools such as chat and whiteboards alongside a video stream, and handle overload

Know what needs to happen before and after the live online session to maximise its value to participants

Identify relevant technical considerations, and deal with common issues.

The workshop focuses on live, interactive sessions over video conference where all participants are remote from each other. It touches only briefly on asynchronous elements such as text-based pre- and post-event discussion. It is not about recording video courses.

Format

This highly-interactive workshop is designed for delivery via live online video conference. There’ll be lots of small-group activities, and you’ll get direct hands-on experience with the tech.

It can be delivered as:

Four two-hour sessions (best for practice between sessions)

Two half-day sessions (one focussing on event design, one on delivery)

A single session of up to eight hours (extremely intense, but minimising the number of days “lost” to being trained).

To discuss how this would benefit your organisation or group, please contact us. To be notified of forthcoming open courses please subscribe.

There is more remote work happening: reported benefits include reduced costs and happier, more flexible staff. But what is the cost to managers? They may be paying the price of this change.

What You Will Learn

Learn how to avoid the pitfalls and embrace the advantages of collaborative work amongst people who don’t work all in the same physical space, all of the time.

In this one­-day intensive we’ll explore ways to make your remote team a high­-performing one, which delivers business results and creates a win­-win culture where company, staff and managers share the remote dividend.

You will be able to:

Create a culture of psychological safety/trust

Lead highly-productive meetings which engage everybody

Minimise the impact of misunderstandings and conflict

Build a thriving informal communications network

Take advantage of more flexible working hours without promoting burnout

Develop problem­-solving autonomy within teams

Maintain and improve sensitivity to potential problems

Get to know, and stay connected with, people you rarely or never meet in person

Replicate the social context of the office

Format

The course is delivered via video conference -­ either Zoom (preferred) or the tool your organisation currently uses. It can be done as a single day (7 hours including breaks); two half-­days; or six separate blocks of around 75 minutes each. There will be some preparatory reading, reflection and research tasks, totalling 45 to 90 minutes per participant.

All participants, and the trainer, will connect by email, Slack or another text­-based tool a few days before, and a few weeks after, the class itself. The “before” contact is to set context, uncover hopes and fears, and to demonstrate the good practice that will be taught during the course; the “after” provides an opportunity to answer specific questions, to offer prompts and reminders of key lessons, and help to transfer the learning to ongoing use.

Maximum group size: 12

Methodology

The course will be highly interactive and experiential, with activities drawing on real­-life example challenges brought by participants. Brain­-friendly learning principles will be used, as adapted for the online video conference context.

Led by: Judy Rees

Judy is an author, speaker, consultant, trainer and coach based in London, but mostly working over the internet. For the last 12 years she has helped people who work apart to work together, better, by improving their relationship-building communications She is the co-author of the bestselling book about Clean Language, which is a precision inquiry toolkit that improves clarity and increases trust in complex human-to-human contexts.

A former journalist and media executive based in London, UK, she holds a European Media Masters degree and is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).

]]>Remote Skills For Consultantshttps://reesmccann.com/2019/02/04/remote-skills-for-consultants/
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 17:19:45 +0000https://reesmccann.com/?p=1051One­-day­-equivalent intensive workshop for consultants who want to increase their productive time and geographic reach, while still meeting or exceeding client expectations. Delivered remotely as two half days or six times 75 minutes

But what does it mean for consultants and consultancies? How can you achieve high standards
without ‘being there’ all the time? What if you could invest the time you now spend in transit,
delivering great work? What if you could extend your reach beyond the usual commute, but
without spending your weekends and evenings in airports?

Some consulting can be entirely remote, but much more can be a blend of the on­site and
remote, allowing you to give more rather than less in terms of delivery, and opening up new
markets. Consultancies can hire new talent from a bigger pool.

What You Will Learn

As a consultant you have advanced­level skills that attract higher than average earnings. You
may be an expert in the complicated or the complex, and your clients rely upon you to achieve
great things, often quickly. This requires the application of your knowledge at the point where it
is fed by the exposure to the project, its people and its challenges. Connection.

In this intensive course we’ll explore ways to deliver great performance as a consultant, blending remote and co­located work. You’ll discover how to transfer your existing skills and upgrade where necessary.

You will be able to:

Create an effective blend of on­site and remote consulting skills that will meet or exceed client expectations

Recognise the specific challenges of remote consulting, and use proven approaches to overcome them

How to get to know, and stay connected with, people you don’t meet frequently (or at all)

How to maintain and improve sensitivity to potential problems, misunderstandings and conflict

How to have those “difficult” conversations, remotely.

Methodology

The course is structured around a series of targeted small­-group activities designed to make the knowledge and experience of the participants into practical learning for all. There will be lots of conversations in twos and threes, and very little chalk­-and­-talk, ­all while we connect as a learning group online, via online video call.

We will use advanced communication techniques to elicit real world experiences and examples, and thus model the efficacy of those techniques in achieving high quality remote consulting relationships. The facilitation techniques used in the workshop will be explained as we use them, so that we not only achieve rapid skill acquisition but also learn and develop new ways of facilitating in the consulting environment.

There will be a small amount of preparatory reading and personal reflection (about 45 minutes) to do before the course begins. All participants, and the trainer, will connect by email, Slack or another text­-based tool a few days before, and a few weeks after, the class itself. The “before” contact is to set context, uncover hopes and fears, and to demonstrate the good practice that will be taught during the course; the “after” provides an opportunity to answer specific questions, to offer prompts and reminders of key lessons, and help to transfer the learning to ongoing use.

Led by: Judy Rees

Judy is an author, speaker, consultant, trainer and coach based in London, but mostly working
over the internet.

For the last 12 years she has helped people who work apart to work together, better, by
improving their relationship-building communications. She is the co-author of the bestselling
book about Clean Language, which is a precision inquiry toolkit that improves clarity and
increases trust in complex human-to-human contexts.

A former journalist and media executive based in London, UK, she holds a European Media
Masters degree and is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce).

Testimonial

“A group of us at AND Digital have recently completed the Remote Facilitation course by Judy
Rees and found it really engaging and valuable.

“The sessions bring together Judy’s remote facilitation experience and her Clean Language
expertise to provide practical and actionable practices for how teams can improve their
distributed and dispersed ways of working.

I would strongly recommend looking into this to help teams move to the next level ­ we have
already started to implement the improvements with internal teams and our clients.”

Stuart Munton, Head of Delivery Innovation AND Chief Methodologist at AND Digital

“Meetings are where the action is… It is in meetings that we agree on how we will
make or break the future.” Elise Keith

Are your online meetings working? They’re great in theory: they should connect all the right
people, at the right time, to quickly get shared perspectives and collaborate on great work,
without the costs and hassles of travel. But that’s not usually what happens. In reality, most
online meetings are a frustrating time­sink.

But great online meetings are possible. In this course you’ll re-craft your in­-the­-room hosting toolkit so that it works just as well ­ perhaps better! ­ online.

Attend this course and you will be able to:

Design and host great online meetings of all kinds, including

cadence meetings (eg updates, reviews, stand­ups, retros)

innovation (eg brainstorming)

training workshops

influencing events (eg sales pitch)

the balance between these meeting types is determined by client needs

Adapt your in­-the­-room toolkit to work effectively online

Overcome the challenges of hybrid meetings

Eradicate distraction, make focus the default

Inspire high­-quality dialogue

Create the conditions where great online meetings of all kinds ‘just happen’.

Format

The course is delivered via video conference ­ either Zoom (preferred) or the tool your
organisation currently uses. It can be done as a single day (7 hours including breaks); two
half­days; or six separate blocks of around 75 minutes each.

There will be some preparatory reading, reflection and research tasks, totalling 45 to 90 minutes
per participant.

All participants, and the trainer, will connect by email, Slack or another text­based tool a few
days before, and a few weeks after, the class itself. The “before” contact is to set context,
uncover hopes and fears, and to demonstrate the good practice that will be taught during the
course; the “after” provides an opportunity to answer specific questions, to offer prompts and
reminders of key lessons, and help to transfer the learning to ongoing use.

Maximum group size: 12

Methodology

The course will be highly interactive and experiential, with activities drawing on real­life example
challenges brought by participants. Brain­friendly learning principles will be used, adapted for
the online video conference context.

Led by: Judy Rees

Judy is an author, speaker, consultant, trainer and coach based in London, but mostly working
over the internet.

For the last 12 years she has helped people who work apart to work together, better, by
improving their relationship-building communications. She is the co-author of the bestselling
book about Clean Language, which is a precision inquiry toolkit that improves clarity and
increases trust in complex human-to-human contexts.

A former journalist and media executive based in London, UK, she holds a European Media Masters degree and is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).